All's Out in Free
by Bobo Peterson
Summary: Minutes before the final bell, eighteen students are called to detention. Their punishment: they must compete in a game in which they are to encase one another in crystal until only one remains. Paranoia gives way to unlikely alliances, and even the most insignificant people are not who they seem. Side character-centric. Post-series.
1. Picking Teams

**All's Out in Free**

 **Summary:** Minutes before the final bell, eighteen students are called to detention. Their punishment: they must compete in a game in which they are to encase one another in crystal until only one remains. Paranoia gives way to unlikely alliances, and even the most insignificant people are not who they seem. Side character-centric. Post-series.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 — "Picking Teams"**

An unseen light overhead blanched the room from black to white. The object at center-screen had a boxy frame reminiscent of a hairdryer. In place of the hammer and sights was a clear chamber filled with a bright, slime-colored liquid.

"For over a century, we've upheld our promise of elegance coupled with reliability. This year, we've partnered with Karl Von Wurst to bring you an innovative product free from unnecessary bulk. No more toys."

A smoky-eyed supermodel bedecked in chunky jewelry gave a sly smile before knocking aside the gun with a flippant wave of her fingers. It slid to the floor in slow motion.

"Introducing our new Lattice line, the latest in pseudocrystalline technology. Brilliant, compact, with sinfully smooth handling – crowd control has never felt so seductive."

Various weapons slithered with dull light as the camera view slowly rolled across their matte chrome finishes.

"We've also improved on the design of our luxury mêlée pieces. Each blade is crafted using our newly patented Splatallic™ plasma-alloy technology, ensuring a clean and intimate incapacitation with just a touch. Now available in rose gold."

She beckoned the viewer with a stare, her dark hair brushed back by a city breeze. She tapped her cheekbone with a nail tipped in polish that appeared to shift colors, but a closer look revealed it to be the drawn blade of a sleek-handled pocket knife.

"For a flawless, million-carat performance, every time."

A lace formation spidered across her cheek, shimmering white like the diamonds in her necklace. She remained posed with a sultry smile on her face, even as the spreading channels in her skin began to scab over with crystal.

"Mann and Webber Firearms."

* * *

Nothing in the room had changed other than the addition of an old-fashioned box television on a wheeled stand positioned at the head of the room. Seeing the trusty piece of equipment usually indicated an easy class period spent watching a movie and filling out a worksheet, yet it awakened a sense of unease in him.

Chaz slurred to life in the desk next to him, raising his drool-streaked chin from the sticky tabletop. He met eyes with Stepak. "I can't believe I, Chaz Monorainian, fell asleep on camera. That's never happened before."

Right then, Stepak's memory returned to him. They had been filming a report on the largest mass incarceration in A. Nigma High's history. Sixteen students had been called in for detention suddenly, not including themselves. Rumor was that the school had been secretly keeping tabs on some habitual troublemakers and chose to call all of them in at once to serve as a head on a pike for the student body. A televised police sting, only for crimes such as breaking the dress code one too many times or using the lockers a little too liberally.

The junior anchor, Tina, had wanted to take the story. Her sister was among the names called for detention minutes before the final bell rang. Chaz just happened to be quicker on his feet. With his tall, slender stature, he was more suited for jumping hurdles rather than news reporting, but his dedication to his hair ended his track career before it even began.

"Are you all right?" asked Stepak, watching Chaz rub the crumbs from his eyes.

"No, I passed out on camera! So embarrassing. My blood sugar must have been dangerously low from how bored I was. Edit that out later, would you?" Chaz gave an overt yawn, stretching his arms over his head. "What time is it? Are we _still_ in detention?"

"This _is_ the detention room." The camera view panned over their dazed classmates in similar states of confusion. Moans fluttered in the air as students primed their vocal chords in response to the dull pain behind their temples. "Look at everyone. I think we've been gassed."

"Hey, you're the cameraman – _I'm_ the reporter. Let me do the reporting. Are we on?" Chaz ran his tongue over the damp film stuck to his front teeth. He practiced his smile, the corners of his lips moving up and down like the ends of a flying javelin, before freezing in the camera's view. "Hey, Chaz Monorainian here, bringing you a special report from the afterschool detention room. Judging from the utter bedlam surrounding me, it appears that everyone here has been gassed. You heard me! Gassed!"

Instead of getting out of his seat, Chaz gripped the sides of his desk and scraped closer to a serious-looking girl named Nadine. Her oval sunglasses sat disheveled on the bridge of her nose as she swiped through her phone. "Nardwina, right? How are you feeling? Scared? Like you're about to puke? Brace your barf bags, folks!"

She shoved the head of his microphone back in his face. "What are you doing?! Check your phone! See if you can call for help!"

"No reception. Typical," said Stepak from off-camera, the view tilting as he slipped his phone back into the pocket of his shorts. "Think we're in lockdown."

Chaz gasped. "You heard it from me first, people! Gassed students, no cell phone reception, the entire school in lockdown! What could it mean?"

"I— It means they've forgotten about us!" shrieked Deuce Markowitz, an outcast boy. A crescent sat on his tongue, the end of his chewed-off fingernail. He swallowed nervously, and it disappeared. "We're the leftovers!" His face deadpanned, and he briefly smiled. "Mmm, leftovers."

"Aww, are you little wimps actually afraid of the dark?" Chopper's voice grated his ears even from the back of the classroom. He rested against his seat, his hairy forearms hanging lazily at his sides. "Weird stuff happens here all the time. They probably just blew a fuse, and we all took a nap or somethin'."

Chaz jumped up. "No, they're holding us prisoner, and now we're going to be forced to fight to the death! I knew this day wou—" A spurt of dense, olive-colored gas left a turret mounted on the ceiling and struck Chaz in the face. His knees buckled as he hunched over his desk to cough violently.

"Sit down and shut up. If any of you attempt to leave your seats, an electric grid in the floor will fry you like a peanut butter and Splat sandwich before you even reach the door." At once, the class fell silent, and their heads snapped towards the intercom. Despite the menacing tone, there was a smarmy quality to the voice, as if it were meant for a nerdy ice cream salesman rather than a potential kidnapper.

Common consensus ruled that most of Chaz's opinions were nothing more than fearmongering, but it pained him more than usual to admit that he might even be right this time. _The Galloping Man_ , _The Starvation Games_ , _Battle Roulette_ – he had slouched through too many dystopian gladiator films, too many banal meta commentaries about mankind's natural, voyeuristic fascination with violence and vain fixation on self-continuation at the expense of others. But those were just corny movies.

"Listen like good children, and I guarantee you will remain unharmed. For the moment."

He could hear Deuce working on detaching another fingernail, the sound of his gnashing teeth like a large cockroach scurrying around in the dark.

"I will read to you the following rules pertaining to your punishment…"

Even Chopper McNeal and his two cronies remained speechless, though he thought he heard a nervous giggle slip from Stinky, the stocky one in overalls.

"One, you are all here because you are being punished."

"For what?" snapped Goob. Like Nadine, he was seldom seen with the hood of his sweatshirt down. The legs of his desk scraped as he stood, but another blast from the ceiling-mounted turret returned him to his seat.

"Don't interrupt again, Mr. Clark, or you will be disqualified. Two, students are to crystalize one another until one remains. Weapons will be available after orientation."

He could hear his neighbors breathe in a collective gasp. Maybe he did, too, even if his expertise in celluloid primed him for this. They were in a movie now, in actuality as long as his camera kept rolling. People always sat in theatres watching and silently planning for the hypothetical – _what would I do if I had to kill (well, crystalize) my classmates? People I've known since childhood? My friends? Could I really run or fight or hide for that long? Could I really survive?_

He had forgotten all his plans. All he could do was stare at Chaz's trembling legs, which shook the entirety of his desk.

"Three, all students that are crystalized will be taken for a little vacation. The survivor may go home after the completion of the punishment."

Tears striped Giuseppe Stern's gaunt cheeks, nearly unnoticeable against his talcum-colored complexion. Curiously, none of his heavy eye make-up melted off. He considered asking him for primer recommendations later. It was growing tiresome, having to wipe Chaz's too-light foundation off the equipment. ( _What was the point of scheduling his tanning appointments, then?_ he thought.)

"Furthermore, each of you is in possession of one Lattice line –" The voice was interrupted by what sounded like a pre-recording for an old-fashioned radio commercial. "Property of Mann & Webber Firearms © All Rights Reserved." Beat. "—handcuff."

Simultaneously, sleeves rolled up and eyes traveled to wrists. A silver band was cinched tightly as to not allow any space between skin and metal. It possessed a small, green light, which Stepak guessed was for monitoring purposes.

"Please direct your attention to this short presentation," the Ice Cream Man continued, referring to the television on stilts. "Trespass into any forbidden zones such as the principal's office, and you will receive an intramuscular dose of pseudocrystalline."

A crude, sepia-tinted animation showed a ballcapped child wandering precariously close to a large door with a sign labeled "Principal's Office – Keep Away" in capital letters.

"Readin' signs is fa sqwares," said the child in a contrived Brooklyn accent before he held up his little four-fingered hand and found a craggy stump in its place. His terrified screams went uninterrupted by the class, quieting only after the encroaching crystal rolled over his mouth and nose, capping his final breaths.

"The injection itself is painless, but the crystallization is especially uncomfortable. Do be careful when traversing the map."

An overhead map of the school blew up on screen. Large swaths were stained pink, and a bright red dot pimpled a single room. It was almost like looking at a weather forecast, the red signifying a tornado.

"The school yards, parking lot, football field, and other areas that are not an immediate part of the campus building are transitory forbidden zones. From the moment you step past the limit, you have sixty seconds to re-enter the school before auto-injection is activated. This is to prevent any students from attempting to climb the fence."

A metallic sound he couldn't place provided ambience to the Ice Cream Man's instructions. Its pitch undulated; and if he covered his ears, it reminded him of some strange machine in pain. Wayne Duncan temporarily halted his wheezing to take two puffs from an inhaler, and the noise ceased.

"Please note that the handcuffs are tamper-resistant. If you attempt to cut them off, they will auto-inject."

"Stop it." Chopper gave a terse whisper, twisting in his seat to swat a larger guy's hand away from his wrist. Having been known around school to punch fist-shaped craters into steel lockers (and sometimes people), Emmett could have easily torn his own bracelet off. Stepak almost wished he would, but the weaker students couldn't be so lucky.

"In a short moment, you will be called up one at a time to retrieve your patented Lattice survival packs – Property of Mann & Webber Firearms © All Rights Reserved. Afterwards, you are to leave the detention room immediately. Failure to do so will result in: one, electrocution via floor grid or two, crystallization. What you do afterwards is up to you. As of this moment, orientation is over. Wait patiently in your seats until your name is called."

He sensed movement in his peripherals, students turning to whisper or discreetly pass notes. Undoubtedly, hurried promises to meet up later.

A group of students who called themselves the Down with Lee Club argued in whispers. Giuseppe Stern, Ed McFenney, and Robin Raven didn't have enough collective cunning among them to survive until the end. He guessed they would be an early nuisance at best before infighting tore the group apart.

Then there were the 15th Graders, the trio of overaged delinquents which included Chopper McNeal, Emmett McKinley, and a guy everyone knew as Stinky. They'd play aggressive from the beginning, and he wouldn't be surprised if they ended up responsible for a bulk of the early eliminations. No potential for endgame survival, though. He predicted that they'd be eradicated mid-to-late game by someone smarter and even more vicious than they were.

Nadine Oliver, Ruby Kwee, and "Tech Nerd" made up the Genius Club, a clique that mostly kept to themselves. Ruby happened to be the younger sister of Tina Kwee, the more competent of A. Nigma's newscasters, and Stepak felt that he liked her more because of it. Too bad she was doomed. Children never survived these types of scenarios. Most likely, she would act as the heart of her team before being coldly taken out.

In the movies, the people who emerged from the wreckage always proved to be either the level-headed hero or the wide-eyed idealist. Nadine and Tech Nerd happened to be both, respectively. Of everyone in the room, the narrative was skewed in their favor, given that none of the independents arose for a dark horse victory.

The remaining students, the independents, faced their desks and gathered sweat in their chairs. They were the classmates who, thanks to some cosmic malfunction, ended up separated from anyone they could safely call an ally.

The most notable was a boy known as Goob, who played bass with the school music idols and could be considered popular if he bothered to socialize outside the band. He could probably weasel his way into any of the groups, but he seemed too proud to do so immediately out the door.

Trevor Mars was all shoulders and arms but little else, which allowed him to coast by on his status as the football team's number two (second to only his best friend, Quarterback Steve). Unlike Goob, his popularity was superficial, concentrated among an insular group of social climbers, jocks, and trust fund babies. He wouldn't survive for long.

Fred Conners was a member of the Skaters, a clique that was so-so in A. Nigma's social hierarchy. With his sun-bleached hair and drowsy-looking eyes, he seemed the epitome of a cute but dumb surfer. His spacey mannerisms would allow him to conveniently evade the other combatants early on, so Stepak banked on a mid-to-late-game elimination.

Deuce Markowitz and Wayne Duncan, an outcast and a mathlete, were goners are far as he was concerned. They were probably going to end up padding someone else's early-game gem count.

In terms of unpopularity, Suzie Elliot was the outlier that should have not been counted, easily able to rival Chopper McNeal for most reviled person in school. Was likely to get herself gemmed, possibly after attempting mass crystallization. (It wouldn't be the first time.)

The brim of Ocho's bucket hat shaded his eyes, and Stepak had to lean and squint to see that they were closed. He appeared as if he hadn't yet stewed off the effects of the gas, but his head raised slowly at the introduction of a paper ball on his desk. Wordlessly, he unfolded it, his hawkish eyes unmoving. He lowered the note and shut his eyes once more like a gargoyle at sunrise. Likely the first to go, yet he somehow seemed privy to his fate.

So where did his predictions leave him and Chaz? He found Chaz staring back at him, as if wondering the same thing.

"Wayne Duncan, step forward."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This is actually a _Battle Royale_ -inspired rewrite of a Detentionaire fic that I had posted back in December. The original had less characters and a lighter concept, but I didn't really have any idea where the plot was heading. Generally, I tried to keep the content silly but kind of dark like the actual show.

Anyway, this story has been marinating in my drafts for a while. I don't know if I'll ever continue it; but it's sitting at fifteen thousand words, so I figured I should post some of the chapters anyway since the Det fandom doesn't receive much fanfiction. (I also love edge and can't get enough.)


	2. Coin Toss

**Chapter 2 — "Coin Toss"**

Fred Conners shot through a vacant hallway on his shortboard. Usually, he would have to keep watch for deans or slow walkers or trash bumps left on the floor during the daily stampede of students. Too many things to worry about when all he wanted to do was ride.

Today felt like an "or day". He could continue freely skating through this wickedly empty hallway _or_ stop to see if random kidnapper dude had packed him a carne asada steak and fries burrito. No "ands". Less choices, less stress. He was never a picky guy, anyway.

He overlapped a stumbling figure and turned over his shoulder to watch him shrink as he zoomed further away. He had never seen Emo Joe run before even during gym class. Guy was always so uptight about his looks. It was almost as if he needed a baby monitor for his clothes and make-up.

"Try walking!" he called out with a gentle smile. "No need to rush, bro!"

Was Emo Joe trying to exercise? Dude wasn't an athlete type of guy, and dad always said there was no sense in judging a platypus by its ability to fly. If Emo Joe wanted to fly, he should sign up for aviation classes. Maybe he was jogging to airplane school. He wondered if he should turn his skateboard around and wish him good luck. The guy needed some cheer in his life.

A daily dose of cheerleaders did everyone some good. They always got a glazed look in their eyes whenever he was around them, and they laughed at everything he said. When he acted like that, people usually asked if he had some kind of special cereal. Maybe that was why cheerleaders were so cold to other guys. Couldn't have people sneaking in and stealing all their nutritious cereal. How else would they get the energy to stay so positive?

He wondered if it was possible for someone to lose so much weight that they became as flat as a strip of paper. It would be mega easy to fly. All Joe would have to do then was fold himself into an airplane like those TV robots that turn into cars.

Dad had told him that morning to always buy a car that was little beat up. What was the point of beating up cars, anyway? They were trying their best. If cars had feelings, monster truck rallies would be majorly messed up. What if skateboards had feelings? He would have to ask his board for a ride every day. Maybe humans and skateboards could learn to get along and work together like that one show about the fighting monsters.

 _Believe in the heart of the board_.

Was that the right show? No, that was the one about the card game. Maybe Emo Joe could tell him, but he didn't seem like he enjoyed games or fun. Was he _still_ crying?

Where was he, anyway? What was he doing?

He faced forward. His skateboard rolled underneath the tripwire. Unfortunately, he did not.

"Totally clutch!" he exclaimed before the crystal obscured his vision.

* * *

Chopper McNeal ducked under the garage door separating the machine shop classroom from the school parking lot, releasing a shallow breath as the blips from his handcuff stopped. To his relief, the garage was still considered a safe zone, even if all that separated it from the danger areas was a flimsy shutter.

Taking the outside route to the garage had been risky, but he was the fastest runner of the three 15th Graders. Otherwise, he knew the other students wouldn't risk getting caught outdoors after the presentation in the detention room. They just didn't have enough nerve, but him – he wasn't afraid of anything (but Tazelwurms; he was working on it).

He dropped his survival pack just as Stinky torpedoed through the inside door leading from the hallway. Stinky rested his hands on his knees, redder in the face than usual. "S— Sorry I'm late, Chopper."

"Whatever. Get smart. We got work to do." Chopper yanked Stinky's pack off his shoulder and kicked it towards the other one. "Where's Emmett?"

"I don't know," responded Stinky, uprighting himself. He wiped his hands on his stomach. "Everyone out there was just running. Maybe nobody wants to play." He sounded hopeful.

"Yeah, right. And I need to braid my beautiful, hip-length hair." Chopper crouched onto the back of his work boots as he rifled through the packs. Bottles of Green Apple Splat, MREs in foil packets, basic hygiene implements – more than enough to bum out for a couple of days, but not what he was searching for. "Emmett better show up."

"Do you think he got lost?" asked Stinky, glancing over Chopper's shoulder.

"If he did, I'll gem him myself," he muttered, his lips pulling into a jagged smile as he fished an object from the bottom. "There we go." He held up what looked like a box cutter, complete with a movable snap for a switch. He gave it an experimental push, and a flickering shard with serrations appeared from the flat end of the hilt. Combat knife. Plenty manly. He switched it off, retracting the blade, and tossed it back in.

People liked to claim that he was just a common bully, but he was performing a necessary community service. No one appreciated the gravedigger for putting people in the ground or the embalmer for getting them pretty for the funeral, either. It was his calling in life to toughen up the weak, to get them steeled for the cruel world outside of A. Nigma.

At least he was honest about being total scum. Most people liked to parade themselves as decent folk, acting like they wouldn't do the same if they were stronger than he was. The first time he repeated sophomore year wasn't so bad; but after the second time, the few friends he had no longer wanted to be associated with a lost cause. They suddenly thought they were too good for him, that he was filth they had to wipe away before he made them sick, too. Kids and teachers alike used to pick on him because he was the dumb kid that got held back, but they didn't laugh anymore now that he was big.

He was the patient zero of retained students. Flunk-outs had existed before him, but none had been known as 15th Graders before he came along. As far as he was concerned, he was a revolutionary, a keeper of the has-beens and what-could've-beens of A. Nigma. He had even done what no other clique leader could, conquering an entire hallway with his fists. He had claimed a space for others like him, the only place in school where no one could look down on them.

"You don't really mean that, right?" Stinky grinned lopsidedly, his default expression. "Chopper?"

Stinky used to be one of his favorite victims. Oh, he used to enjoy bullying the confetti out of Stinky. All those Green Apple Smacks and Face Von Chillsteins had soldered him into a man. He was strong now, and no one messed with him. Chopper felt a swell of pride at his work. He had turned some wimpy outcast weirdo into a ring-worthy bulldog.

But Stinky was getting too smart on him lately with all that clown stuff. He'd have to do something about that soon. Maybe tear up his clown school homework, tell him it went missing. Mess up his scooter if it came to that.

"Shut up and quit distractin' me!" Chopper overturned a portable box of hospital-grade tissues, revealing the curved mass of a hand grenade. He examined it briefly, running a finger over the globe-like indents, checking the pin to see if it was safely fastened. They didn't get any of the useless weapons, but he figured they'd need to get their hands on one of those fancy crystalizing guns sooner or later.

If he ended up dumping Stinky, he could always scare some nerds into hacking into the school's grading database for him. There were always underclassmen with potential, the kids in danger of failing due to having messed-up parents or simply having Splat for brains. A few were already marked for 15th Graderdom, a fact they hid from their friends like a contagious bite. He imagined them suddenly growing and sprouting facial hair on graduation day, their ugly visible to their peers like a prince cursed to become a beast. Then, he would be waiting for them.

The door to the auto shop flew open, and Emmett nearly dented the doorframe while trying to force his massive shoulders through. He arrived in a similar state of breathlessness, sweat trailing along his wide jawline. He said nothing as he scrambled over to Chopper.

Now Emmett, he was a good, old boy. There couldn't be a more perfect lackey. Real big, crooked as a bumper on a rice burner, and didn't talk too much – he never asked questions, never wasted time bringing up useless things like clown school. All Chopper had to do was whistle and snap his fingers, and he'd come running like a well-trained Doberman, the padlock on his chain necklace jingling like a bell on a collar. _Sic 'em._

Didn't even have to get up and tear his pack away from him. The big guy lumbered over and plopped it into his lap. _Fetch._

Chopper turned it over, spilling its contents onto the concrete floor. He brushed aside plastic-wrapped toothbrushes and packets of apple-flavored turkey jerky, his mouth pulling into a sneer. "Where's the weapon? You must have lost it. Idiot!" It didn't surprise him, but he could still hear the circuits shorting out in Emmett's head. He could have brought back something useful for once, like a gun. "Go watch the hallway, you bonehead!"

Despite his behemoth size, Emmett slouched like an animal that didn't know why it was being yelled at. Sometimes, Chopper wished he could upgrade his brain with Stinky's.

"Go, you moron! Guard the hallway!" he repeated. "Don't come back until I tell ya!"

Emmett gave an expectant pause before wordlessly slinking away. Chopper sighed and shook his head. He was so hopeless sometimes.

Stinky frowned, his head slowly turning to follow Emmett to the door. "You sure he's going to be okay out there by himself?"

"He'll be fine. You said yourself that nobody's playing. And even if they were, they're all total wimps, anyway." Placated, Chopper sorted through the scattered supplies. No weapon, but he could help himself to some amenities (he pronounced it "ammonites" in his head) while he got his plan together. "Unless you'd like to join 'im."

The suggestion shut Stinky up, and he backed away and found a place on the wall. Harsh, but he couldn't have them getting smart on him. When people got too smart, they got testy. Then they'd start thinking that they were too good for him.

He took a shaving razor from the thinly sealed plastic wrap. It was the cheap, disposable kind with only two blades. He pulled the sterile plastic cap off the head and flicked it aside. He only shaved on average of once a month, twice now that he had a girlfriend. Since he was going to be everyone's Grim Reaper and all, he figured he should look his best.

He found his reflection in the passenger's side mirror of an old funeral hearse (how ironic!) that they had been fixing up since the beginning of the school year. Curiously, he kept his head diligently clean-shaven, yet there were sparse patches of hair on his chin and along his jawline that were in need of attention.

Leave it to the pencil-pushing wussy kidnapper to remember to pack a sewing kit but not shaving cream. He would just have to deal. A little razor burn built character (but not as much as an old-fashioned Indian burn!). His pursed his lips and angled his head slightly upwards, the head of the razor entering his reflection as he brought it to his face.

After this, he and the boys would have to round up all the losers. Most of them were too chicken to put up a fight, anyway, so he would save them the suspense of waiting. He'd have them bound together all nice and tight with duct tape. Get them settled in a closet or something, then leave them with a live Lattice grenade for a snack.

When it was just the three of them left – him, Stinky, and Emmett – he'd have Emmett take care of Stinky for him. He'd remember to thank Emmett later with a Lattice knife in the back. _Good boy._

See? He had it all planned out. Smart. That was why he was the boss.

He caught sight of his smooth-shaven chin in the mirror. There was a small dark pock like a bruise, the first razor nick of the day. Like a stain, it continued to spread through the fabric of his skin, turning molten green before his eyes. Green, like the "go" at a stoplight or the safe color on a gas pyrometer. Green was good. Everything was okay.

Stinky giggled quietly. "C— Chopper?"

His jaw was suddenly itchy. And it burned. Not enough for him to be in serious pain, but it was irritating in a slow, gnawing way. Just like an actual razor bump. His gaze fell to the thick, wiry black hairs caught in the razor. The slivers of blade gleamed back at him, translucent.

"Stinky." In an instant, his mouth flooded with solid crystal. It felt and tasted as if he had overfilled his mouth with caulk and let it dry. It— It was climbing! Eating him. Was he going to suffocate? He tried to reach for his face, but his shoulders seized up. He couldn't throw the first punch this time.

 _No, please no. Mommy! Beth! Emmett! Someone help me! I'm scared._

Stinky hadn't moved from the wall. He remained pressed against the brick, giggling uncontrollably as he watched Chopper's heaving breaths still underneath the crystal. He looked ready to pass out himself, his face three shades redder than the rest of him, his eyes watering over with tears.

 _Don't leave me. I'm still good! I can still be good! Don't throw me away. I'm scared._

He was locked in a standing position, his head bowed as if in shame. Razor in hand. Plastic safety cap by his feet.

 _I'm sorry._


	3. Tag

**Chapter 3 — "Tag"**

A large stalagmite cleaved the main hallway into two lanes, and Ruby Kwee knew immediately that it was— _had been_ another student. She maneuvered around Fred Conners' crystalized body, nearly grazing the web of Lattice tripwire tethered between lockers. Her breath hitched. So there were people who were serious about the punishment, despite Tech Nerd's hypothesis that their peers' inherently reasonable and cooperative natures would discourage them from playing.

 _Reasonable and cooperative._ She couldn't look at Fred Conners' face, still frozen in a calm smile.

His pack nestled a far wall, separated from her by the jungle gym of wires. She guessed it had been knocked from his shoulders before the crystal set in. The closed zipper told her that it hadn't yet been looted, but she decided against making a long trek around the school to retrieve it.

She was forced to turn around, once again facing the empty hallway she came from. That had been the quickest route to the library, where she was supposed to meet up with the other members of the Genius Club. Having been among the last students called, the others had probably arrived at the rendezvous point by the time she left the detention room.

She forced herself into a brisk walk, holding her assigned Lattice .44 magnum close to her stomach. Her expertise didn't extend to weapons or anything of the sort, so she didn't know what exact model it was. Just that it was a gun, and it was heavier than she had expected. She couldn't figure out how to open the chamber, but she guessed it contained a charge of some sort instead of actual bullets, a trademark of the weapon's pseudocrystalline technology.

Was it even loaded? Earlier, she had cautiously snapped back the hammer, expecting it to explode at any moment. Books had taught her that it was safest to keep her finger off the trigger unless she intended to – she swallowed – gem someone.

With her path blocked off, she would have to backtrack and take the long way around or make a detour through the dimly lit hallway with the busted-up lockers. She passed by that hall every single day, but her sister had frequently warned her against exploring. Tina didn't have to scare her with any make-believe tales of school ghosts or secret brainwashing rooms. She knew there was a pack of overgrown bullies that prowled that turf, threatening to beat up anyone that wandered in. Unfortunately for her, all three of them were somewhere in the school, and she didn't doubt that they were playing into the punishment.

Who could she trust? Who did she distrust least? The school's three biggest bullies or the fourteen or so other students she could run into taking the long way? Besides the other members of the Genius Club, she had little meaningful interaction with the rest of A. Nigma's student body. The older kids often made efforts to avoid her when they could, treating her like a glass unicorn on a precariously tall table. She didn't know if they felt beneath her somehow, or maybe they resented her. Being an eleven-year-old in eleventh grade had that effect on people.

The Kwees were considered to be one of the most intelligent families in modern history, yielding prodigies in nearly every field of study from linguistics to particle physics. Both of her parents had received the Nobel Prize at least once, accomplishments she hadn't known were out of the ordinary until she used it as a survey question in AP Statistics last year. She and Quarterback Steve Carb had been the only people who scored in the "yes" category, their family repute appearing as a dash next to the elevator ride of "nos" on her bar graph.

According to adults, she had been born to save the world (whatever that meant). She had never been pressured to concern herself with her appearance, her year-round sweaters oftentimes a few sizes too big and her hair bobbed in a dowdy style (a bowl cut!) that would have gotten older kids mercilessly picked on. Since her first IQ test at two-years-old, her parents had stamped into her head that she was somehow better than ninety-eight percent of the "normal" population, and they never let her or her normal sister Tina forget it.

A hiss like a gas stove igniting startled her. She whipped around and nearly headbutted a much taller figure in the stomach. Giuseppe looked like the tiny soldier in a cuckoo clock, standing tall with his arm wound back. Judging from how quickly he had crept up on her, she guessed he had been hiding against the side of a locker, waiting for someone to pass by.

A Lattice hatchet was raised over his head, its fan-shaped blade already drawn. He was breathing loudly through his mouth, and a clear stream leaked from one of his nostrils. His eyes went wide, and he seemed just as surprised to see her. Neither of them spoke, but his gaze caromed between her face and her hands.

"Please!" _Please, go away!_ She raised her crystallization gun at the ceiling tile behind Giuseppe, though she wasn't really aiming at all. She just didn't want to hit him. "Run away!"

She squeezed down on the trigger as hard as she could. The Lattice gun fired with only a pleasant shoof, but she wasn't prepared for the force that nearly threw her to the ground. The gun slipped from her grasp and flew over her head, somersaulting until it hit the floor behind her with a loud clatter.

She let out a yelp and bolted, not looking back to see if Giuseppe was following her. Her feet felt suddenly hot, and she wondered if the charge had gone off and struck her. (Was that how being hit by a crystallization gun was supposed to feel?) The sound of her heartbeat pulsed in her ears as she turned a corner and slipped into the darkness of the Forbidden Hallway.

* * *

The science of jokes, like any other science, consisted of cause and effect.

"Frederick is going through one of the most important stages in regards to his cognitive development," Dr. Patterson had commented. "Perhaps his recent stint of aggressive behavior is a reaction to the perceived failures in his academic performance compounded with his desire to assert his worth in a status quo that values aggressive behaviors associated with traditional masculinity."

Dr. Patterson (the husband) had replied, "But how do we know his increasingly anti-social behaviors are a result of the failures and not the cause of them?"

The set-up was the beginning of the joke, the part where the teller established a rapport with the audience. Set-ups often included personal anecdotes, questions posed to the listener, or discussions of salient topics.

They had been cycling through the DSM since the time their son pulled off his own braces with pliers when he was twelve. They had thought it was his self-destructive way of rebelling, but he just found them uncomfortable. No one had listened to him when he complained that the wire was scraping the insides of his cheeks raw, so he took it upon himself to fix the problem in the most practical way he knew how. He hadn't understood what made his parents so concerned (but not angry – they rarely lashed out).

With both parents being highly esteemed academics, little Freddy had been provided a comfortable childhood. His father was a tenured professor of epistemology at the local big-town university. His mother, a research psychiatrist specializing in working with troubled children and adolescents, ran an upscale clinic out of their quaint three-story home in a neighborhood called Wurst Village. He remembered the inside of the house being saturated in muted colors, immaculately clean, and quiet.

He couldn't force his eyes away from the crystal, so vivid and colorful. His face was skewed a dozen different ways in the facets of Chopper's back. He looked so… funny! His mouth was a big, blurry hole, and every movement was like watching a dimension of ghosts scream back at him. He laughed and made faces at his own reflection.

"Chopper, quit jokin' around!" Stinky sniffled. "Get out of there!"

It wasn't as if he had never seen someone get gemmed before. He had been entombed in crystal himself once when the Cleaner bots had malfunctioned, and it tickled like being strapped to a massage chair. Chopper wasn't very ticklish, though, so maybe that was why he hadn't laughed.

Piano keys sprawled out across the reflective surface of Chopper's crystallized body, and Stinky turned to notice Emmett standing at the doorway. His mouth was twisted into a stiff grimace, displaying the prominent gaps in his teeth. Why did he look so scared?

He had only heard Emmett laugh at a joke once, and it hadn't even been one of his. It was the first time they had come face-to-face with the legendary prankster of A. Nigma, Lee Ping. They had cornered him in their off-limits hallway and served up the usual treatment of a locker facial with a fist massage scheduled at three-fifteen after school.

"Anyone who cuts through our hallway gets a date with us on the football field after school!" Chopper had threatened.

The punchline was the climax of the joke, the part that was supposed to incite the most reaction from the audience.

Lee Ping had smiled in response. "Guys, I already have a girlfriend!" Cue laughter.

"Emmett." A years-long friendship, and he hadn't been able to coax even a single chuckle out of him. "Why don't you ever laugh at my jokes?"

Emmett answered with stony silence. His face was stuck in that alarmed expression, and Stinky wondered if he had heard him.

"We all might get gemmed, so I want you to laugh for me. Just once." Here came the punchline. "I want to think that I can— that I'm good at something!"

Stinky reached into Chopper's abandoned day pack. With a flick of his wrist, he brandished the Lattice combat knife with a swish. Emmett already had his back turned to him, starting into a run.

"Stay still and let me tickle you!"


	4. Truth or Dare

**Chapter 4 — "Truth or Dare"**

Chaz Monorainian poked his head out from behind a trash bin, alerted by the sound of the detention room door sliding open. Out stepped the tall kid that was always wearing a bucket hat (he didn't remember his name). Unlike the others, he didn't break into a run, instead strolling leisurely towards the school's main entrance. Chaz watched him until he disappeared through the double doors.

 _Didn't he hear the PSA about the outside being a danger zone?!_

He eyed Stepak's note again, written hastily on the back of a crumpled Big Chicken receipt. _Wait for me beside the door._

The advice sounded like self-crystallization to him, but he had been waiting near the door like a leashed puppy for the past half-hour. The 15th Graders had been called before him, and he had braced himself for an ambush as soon as he left the safety of the detention room. Thankfully, the previously called students had the sense to take off and find someplace to hide. Some had even passed by without noticing him, and it made him wonder if his luminizer was sparkly enough.

The locking mechanism of the door ticked off again, signaling the arrival of another student. He pressed himself to the side of the trash bin, venturing a peek over the mouth. The pungent, sick-sweet stench of garbage wafted towards his face and made his stomach clench.

He jumped up. "Stepak! What took you so long?! I nearly got gemmed out here!"

His outburst nearly startled the video camera out of Stepak's hands, and he juggled to keep it in his grasp. He fixed the camera view on Chaz, whose usually immaculate coif sported a few loose shreds of hair. "You would've been fine. In disaster scenarios, most people don't stay in one place for too long."

"What are we going to do?! I'm probably going to get turned into a big, gorgeous diamond. They didn't even pack me any hairspray!" He shielded his face with his hands, as if repulsed by the light at the end of the hallway. "Is that thing on? No, don't film me like this!"

"You look fine." Stepak sighed off-camera. "How about a report? The student body's got to know what's going on here."

"Right. You're right." Chaz drew in a few deep breaths as he brushed back his stray bangs. His father, Dash Monorainian, was lead anchorman for the eastern provinces' largest news network. Under the same conditions, he wouldn't be crying his make-up off or chattering his porcelain-coated teeth on camera. "Are we on?"

"I hope so," was Stepak's reply.

"Once they see the Chaz in obvious distress, they'll send someone to come rescue me!" He faced the lens. With no microphone, he held a toothbrush close to his mouth. "Chaz Monorainian here, standing at ground zero of this— I don't know what this is! Me and seventeen less attractive students have been trapped here and forced to fight to the death!"

"It's not death," corrected Stepak. "It's crystallization – Property of Mann & Webber Firearms © All Rights Reserved."

"Whatever! Things aren't looking good for the Chaz! If anyone's watching this, send the cavalry to A. Nigma High School! If it's too late and I'm already a crystal, I'd like you all to remember me as I was here." He held a glossy photo up to the camera lens. It was of him dressed in a luxurious smoking robe and posing with a framed medal that read "#1 Son". "Remember me for my flawless complexion and perfectly sculpted eyebrows."

"What the—?" Stepak froze. "Chaz, run!"

Chaz's head pivoted to look over his shoulder. Two figures appeared at the horizon, bounding towards them at a startling pace. At first, he had thought it was a very large person, but the silhouette split into two, a runner and a chaser. Emmett, the brawniest and most intimidating of the 15th Graders, came barreling from the darkness tailed by a widely grinning Stinky.

"Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle!" shrieked Stinky, his voice rising until it squeaked. He held out a glowing object as if it were a pin he was about to stick into a donkey.

"Here it comes! I'm a goner, momma!" Chaz spun on his heels and sprinted in the same direction, tossing aside his toothbrush mike.

Stepak shouted after him, "Other way!" Why did they always run in the _same_ direction as the killer? They could have easily slipped past them. He took off after Chaz anyway, the camera view bobbing wildly like a poorly-filmed found footage movie.

Within seconds, Chaz was a quarter-lap ahead of his cameraman and their pursuers. The soles of his leather shoes slapped against the tile flooring, and he briefly felt as if he had projected out of his own body from how quickly he was running.

"Chaz!" Stepak turned his camera around to film himself, catching a glimpse of his own terrified face eclipsing the ghastly visages of the 15th Graders. "Wait!"

"You're not fast enough, Stepak!" Chaz didn't even look back. "It's every man for himself!"

The last image he saw of Stepak was of him standing motionless at the end of the hallway, 15th Graders at the back of his neck, as if to get a perfect shot of Chaz leaving him behind. He couldn't bring himself to look directly at him, but he caught a glance of Stepak's utterly betrayed expression in the corner of his eyes.

 _Only one take._

"You're not fast enough!"

 _No second chances._

* * *

The evening had baked the sky to a flushed hue over A. Nigma High School. He guessed the skyline would have looked beautiful if he could have seen it past the six-meter-tall concrete fence bordering the entire campus. Instead, LaGreenor "Ocho" Jonesones stood facing the wall with his eyes closed, imagining the sunset soaking into his skin.

The school's main doors burst open, and heavy footsteps came to a halt at the top of the steps. He heard gasping breaths laced by a deep, wordless voice. The chirping of another cuff joined his in a disjointed cricket song, as if foretelling a plague.

"Come here to enjoy the sunset with me?" he asked Emmett. "There's not much to look at, but the experience is always free."

Emmett startled at his voice and distanced himself closer to the door. Ocho could feel those unseen eyes pinned to his back like a Kick Me sign, sizing him up. A few months ago, he would have been equally panicked in the current situation – kept prisoner inside the school, forced to battle his classmates, and being caught alone with one of the most dangerous students out the gate.

"You're welcome to try to beat me up, but I've been out here for a while. If you're touching me while this bracelet goes off, you'll be crystallized, too." It sounded more like a gentle warning rather than a threat. "But maybe that's for the better."

He knew better than anyone, having once been one of the most feared students to roam the halls of A. Nigma High. He hadn't even given his usual victims a reprieve on the first day of school, ransoming some poor kid's glasses before the first bell had even rang. It used to be so easy, giving pain to others as if to starve his own. But then the vision came to him, sniffed out the seeds of discontent he had planted in himself.

"Do you like hurting other people? I see the way you look when people are afraid of you." Smiling with little emotion. Thoughtless. "But fear gets lonely after a while. Fear is a deceiver. And it follows you to the existence after this one."

On the first day of school, during the first assembly of the year, the auditorium had been cast into darkness. Ivy-colored rain had fallen upon their heads followed by a miasma of decay that had caused many around him to become violently ill. The floor had pulsed with frogs and other lower creatures; and from the swamp, a blood-colored serpent had emerged and coiled itself around a vestal maiden. The apocalypse had come.

"You're scared, aren't you? I can hear it in the way you're breathing right now, all quiet and shallow." He had heard it too many times from the victims of his past life. They would cower and forget to breathe, as if trying to make themselves so small that they vanished. "Our suffering will pass soon, just as all things do. I am simply choosing to let go."

Everywhere Ocho had looked, he witnessed people wracked by fear, many clinging desperately onto others as the world fell in viscous streams around them. Maybe it had been the Splat fumes, but a booming voice had reached out to him among the chaos. (People had later tried to convince him that it was all a part of some big prank, a farce. He knew that couldn't be true – after all, no one else had understood the divine message.) Its words had left no room for interpretation: "Man wears anguish."

Man wears anguish like clothing. Pain was an intrinsic quality of existence, but it could only be birthed through want – want of stability or companionship or youth, all of which were ever-changing. To escape the cycle of eternal suffering, a pilgrim had to first cull the roots of their desires and allow the truth to embrace their bare, natural self. His silent guest had a Lattice cuff strapped to his wrist and a padlock chained around his throat, yet he sensed those weren't the only shackles he wore on his soul-body. (He made a note to write that line down later for posterity's sake. Maybe incorporate it into some poetry.)

"You could join me if you'd like. Nice is as nice does." The final warning blips arrived in rattling hisses that stretched out like a cicada's call. To him, they sounded like meditation bells. "It's not _death_ death, y'know? It's only a vacation. You can finally rest."

He heard stumbling, then the curt clang of the doors being open and shut.

"Suit yourself." His cuff had stopped beeping. He could already feel the pseudocrystalline dripping down his fingers, squeezing his hand as the crystal condensed. It was nearly comforting. "Namu Amida Butsu."

Ocho raised his head, allowing the sunlight to paint his eyelids. The crystal crackled soothingly as it draped around his shoulders. He sighed through his nose, and his final breath formed faint waves in the otherwise unclouded green.

The doors flew open. The hooded girl, Nadine, replaced Emmett at the front steps. She snapped her eyes shut and began to shake her head over and over again.

"I knew it," she whispered bitterly, turning to head back into the school. "Ocho."


	5. Hide and Seek

**Chapter 5 — "Hide and Seek"**

Nadine Oliver kept close to the walls, weaving behind open locker doors and trophy cabinets. If anyone happened to spot her or she found herself in an ambush, she would at least have cover to hide behind. Otherwise, she figured she wouldn't stand a chance in a one-sided firefight. The sickos who had imprisoned everyone in the school left her with a basic first aid kit. It didn't come with any anti-crystallization agents, either, rendering it virtually useless given their unique situation.

She had suffered an encounter with the hulking 15th Grader on the way to the front entrance. To her surprise (and relief), he had rushed by without even stopping to shake his fist. When she discovered Ocho already encased in crystal, she had almost believed that Emmett had done it and fled the scene. She didn't want to think that her friend had— that he had _gemmed himself_ , but he just looked so peaceful.

 _I should've known. He didn't answer my note. I thought he'd just been acting all mysterious again, but— Jeez, LaGreenor._

The intercom creaked, interrupting her mourning. "Hello? Hello? Is it on?" questioned a nasally voice. It wasn't the Ice Cream Man's.

She murmured, snapping her eyes shut. "No, no, not right now. This is not the time."

"Hello? Okay. Excuse me, everyone. This is— Well, you all might know me as Tech Nerd. Some of you don't know I exist, but that's okay, too." His voice tapered off. "If you are out there, please come to the library. We don't mean any harm. We can work together."

"Tech." Her jaw tightened. She veered off course, setting her sights on the library. "What are you doing?"

"Please, if you're out there, please come to the library. That's the library, located at— Oh, I guess they know where it is already." He cleared his throat quietly. "We are not your enemies. We can figure out a way to end this together, as a team! Again, we're not going to fight!"

The hallway leading to the library wing remained unnervingly empty, and the announcement continued to ring in her ears as she approached the wooden double doors. She gave a cursory scan through the plexiglass windows before cracking open the door, allowing herself only enough space to slip through. She was immediately met with alarmed stares, then flickers of relief when her observers realized she wasn't one of the problem students.

She marched over to one of the uninvited guests on their turf, the anxious outcast named Deuce. "Where's Tech Nerd?"

He directed a trembling finger in the direction of the librarian's office. By then, he had chewed his fingernails down until pink slivers showed. "O— Over there!"

Nadine sighed, crossing her arms as she crept into the small alcove behind the check-out counter. Tech Nerd was hunched over Miss Alice's desk, mumbling into the side of his hand. She stood over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

The boy jumped and pulled his short legs onto the swivel chair he was sitting on, causing himself to roll precariously towards a filing cabinet. He clung to the back rest and readied himself to use it as a shield. "D— Don't sneak up on me like that! I could have given you a Face Von Chillstein!"

"Right." A Face Von Chillstein, like the one famous action star Ace Von Chillstein unleashed on Dr. Sugarscrub in the reboot of _Brick McSlam 2000: Masseur in Flames_ – "No one gets exfoliated for free!" She lifted a brow. "What in the world did you think you were doing?! Are you trying to get yourself gemmed?"

Words flooded out of Tech Nerd's mouth. "Well, see, I noticed that the school recently upgraded to a digital PBX announcement system, so I dug up this old cordless phone a—"

"Listen, people aren't playing out there! I saw Fred Conners." And Ocho – she still couldn't believe he was gone. She rested her head in a hand. "We're lucky nobody came for us, yet. It could've been Chopper McNeal breathing down your neck instead of me."

"B— But they didn't! Look at all the people who came." He gestured to the familiar students waiting nervously around the reading tables in the lobby.

Among them were Suzie Elliot, whom she silently disliked but could tolerate, and Mathlete Wayne Duncan. Wayne had his arms rested on the tabletop, his back slowly rising and sinking with every hoarse breath that filtered into his lungs. Deuce Markowitz was still in the process of eating his fingernails, and she was sure he would have started on his toenails, too, if he could reach his foot to his mouth. School news anchor Chaz Monorainian sat at a distance from the others, quietly rocking himself.

"This wasn't a part of our plan. _They_ weren't a part of our plan." They were supposed to hide out in the secret (read: _secret_ ) Genius Club hideout and let the others work themselves out until they could formulate an escape. "Where's Ruby?"

"S— She's not here, yet." Tech Nerd shot her a worried glance. "I thought she was with you."

"I thought—! I thought she had already gotten here!" Nadine's upturned eyes widened to half-moons behind the lens of her glasses.

Tech Nerd hesitated. "Do you think—?"

"No, course not! Ruby's smart. Girl can handle herself." Still, she questioned if any of their classmates were vile enough to attack an eleven-year-old girl and was horrified at being able to list a few off the top of her head. "We're going to wait here for her. It's too dangerous to move in a group like this." She couldn't imagine Ruby arriving at the library later, only to find that they had left her behind.

"Y— Yeah, we're not leaving without Roobs." Techie gave a vigorous nod.

"We'll just have to keep watch on the door. Maybe get ourselves ready for a fight." Her voice softened.

She had never been in an actual fight before, much less one with guns and knives (albeit ones that turned people into crystal instead of murdering them). They were supposed to be geniuses, the harbingers of a politer society. She doubted that anyone currently in the library ever had to throw hands outside of a video game, yet she had been speaking as if she were a lieutenant in charge of a lovable platoon of misfits.

She could have been a main character in one of her mother's novels. Kathleen Darabon Oliver, sometimes credited as "K.D. Oliver" and most commonly "Kathleen Darabon", was making the inevitable genre shift from adult paranormal romance to young adult dystopian fiction. Her most recent venture, titled _Lizard Eclipse_ , would detail the adventures of another pale and conveniently attractive heroine as she fell in love with a brooding reptilian shapeshifter during the aftermath of an apocalypse. It was going to be the first installment in her _Scales Under the School_ series.

 _Real subtle, mom._

Crying was considered a cowardly act for a Darabon heroine (they were "not like other girls!"), reserved only for senseless character deaths or minor squabbles with her love interest. Yet, it was the only thing she felt like doing at the moment. She lingered so close to outright sobbing that she was eerily calm, her eyes coated in a dry layer that she blinked away.

"We got to get everyone together. Find a way to barricade that door."

* * *

The Forbidden Hallway was nothing more than an L-shaped corridor that connected the main thoroughfare with the side of the school facing the parking lot. It halved the time needed to get to the other side of the building via foot, but most students preferred making the full lap around campus just to avoid the dangerous wildlife that lurked within.

The air seemed to shift as soon as she had crossed the unseen barrier into 15th Grader territory, and the sudden metallic stench brought to mind an abandoned factory. Ruby stepped over yellowed fast food wrappers and maneuvered around dented garbage cans, treating them as if they were land mines. She was almost too scared to blink, having heard that the 15th Graders possessed a tendency to sneak up on unsuspecting prey.

Lockers in various states of disfigurement flanked her, their steel doors gnarled out like tree branches in a creepy forest. All she had to do was sneak past the beasts' den, the solitary door at the bend of the hallway, and she could sprint the rest of the way to the library. _Run, little rabbit, run!_

Her breath seized when she finally noticed that the auto shop door was open, and there was a very large man standing at the entrance. His fridge-like back was facing her, and she tentatively played with the thought that she could have easily gemmed him from that distance had she kept a hold on her weapon. Another person inside the garage was speaking in a tense manner, nearly yelling.

She considered quickly running past as he was distracted, but the large man began to back into the hallway. Ruby stifled a cry and shoved herself into the nearest locker, pack and all. The lock was busted, so she held the door shut and clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

"Come on! Stay still and let me tickle ya!" demanded a shrill voice. Multiple sets of footfalls drummed into a frantic run and faded at the mouth of the hallway. She wasn't tall enough to peek through the slats and check to see if they had truly vanished. Even if she had been, the top half of the locker had been caved in by what she imagined was an impressive display of blunt force.

 _They were chasing someone! What if— What if I was listening to someone's final moments? I didn't do anything to help!_

What could she do? She was only an eleven-year-old girl, but that sounded like a rationalization to her. She was also a Kwee genius, and it had been her born duty to watch over the less intelligent folk. She was supposed to be a parent to mankind, yet she found herself at the mercy of the least academically gifted students in school.

She waited in the dark for what felt like a whole lunch period, listening in vain for signs that the 15th Graders were returning to their cave. She had planned on slipping past them after they were safely tucked away in the garage, but their continued absence was starting to make her think that maybe their victim had somehow managed to overtake them. The notion wasn't _impossible_. More darkly, she thought, they all could have run into a trap like the tripwire that gemmed Fred Connors.

Her day pack cushioned her back uncomfortably. Even with her tiny frame, the walls of the bent locker hugged her shoulders, and she had to wriggle to dislodge herself. She leaned her weight onto the locker door, feeling the straps of her pack dig into her arms.

It didn't budge. She tried again, her waifish girth providing no more than a soft thwap as she threw herself against the door. Again. This time, the steel sheeting vibrated, but the door didn't appear any less jammed.

She could hear someone approaching from the main hallway. Her head flushed with neurotransmitters that translated into pure panic. Was it an aggressor or a savior? Who did she know that took such heavy footsteps? Everyone thought that Biffy Goldstein was a bully, but he was nice to children and animals (he wasn't in the punishment game, though). Then there was Trevor Mars, a jock who could be kind of mean sometimes but had once picked up her book for her after she had dropped it.

A sound like a cannonball hitting the inside of a tumble dryer put her conjectures to rest. She felt the tremor of the punch through the adjacent lockers. The strikes continued in a line of busted locker doors, heading towards her.

 _Oh no. Please, no. Not now._

Ruby gave a futile kick to the door, only managing to make the tip of her shoe connect due to the confining space. She grimly wondered if her pack would serve as a reverse airbag, catching her head after it was punched back by an unsuspecting fist. She could hear the locker next to her groan as it changed shape, followed by a roar of frustration.

She called out as loudly as she could. "W— Wait!"

She heard the dry plop of a balled hand being pulled out of a locker door. There was quiet breathing, then the heart-spiking sound of fingers closing around the dial. In an instant, the stuck door was pulled off its hinges, bringing her face-to-waist with Emmett McKinley. He seemed surprised, though that wasn't an unexpected reaction to finding a small child trapped in a locker.

Her pack kept her crushed to the back of the locker, so she freed herself from the shoulder straps and tripped into the openness of the hallway. Emmett's head pivoted on his bullish neck, following the clumsy movement.

She put her hands up, as if her child's forearms could somehow prevent his fist from colliding with her face. "Please! P— Please don't hurt me! I'm unarmed!"

Emmett's parted mouth sank into a small frown. His heavily muscled arms remained at his side, and he dropped the amputated door of locker twelve eighty-seven with a clang. Slowly, she opened her eyes to slivers, immediately catching a glimpse of a small object twinkling behind him. A scope.

"G— Get away from her!" demanded a voice. It sounded like a teenage boy's.

Emmett hadn't moved. She looked between his shaded eyes, still staring at her confusedly from behind the beak of his cap, and the distant light. "Look out!" she called out, pointing.

The giant spun around, and a bright stream of concentrated pseudocrystalline shot past the space between his side and his arm. The crystal struck the far locker like a thrown cinderblock, only it remained cemented to the door.

"S— Someone's shooting at us!" Ruby made a break for the bend of the hallway. Emmett followed.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** the story continues beyond this point, but it's mostly incomplete chapters near the ending. It's pretty unpolished, but I had the basic plot planned out. Characters like the Serpent and Lynch were supposed to appear and have roles in the story later.


	6. Mr Wolf

**Chapter 6 — "Mr. Wolf"**

The saliva in his mouth had thickened to a stale paste. Goob blinked the crust loose from his eyes, his vision returning in formless colors. _What was I doing last night?_

The air felt sharp, and he couldn't place the chemical scent that burned the inside of his nostrils. He peered down at the sudden tightness in his chest and found duct tape belting him to a chair. Near his feet was the edge of a swimming pool, its surface still slithering with brightly lit water.

The events of the previous hours felt too much like a dream. He remembered heading in the direction of the A/V room, day pack and bass guitar strapped to each shoulder. He had set his hopes on finding a spare amp or even a megaphone, anything that could help him summon a noise complaint to A. Nigma High School.

He had almost overlooked the Forbidden Hallway completely, turning back when his brain registered the sight of that little kid Ruby Kwee cowering from one of the 15th Graders. The Lattice weapon that had been included with his survival pack was bizarrely heavy even for a gun and included an attached stand which hung uselessly from the handguard. He struggled to lift the sights to his eye, his view shaking as he primed the crosshairs on Emmett.

"G— Get away from her!" he warned. He hoped that seeing his weapon raised would be enough to convince the 15th Grader to run away.

Ruby had pointed at him, shouting. "Look out!"

 _What?_ His finger jumped on the trigger. The gun jolted from his grip and pistoned the scope into his face. He had blacked out instantly, not even feeling his body hit the floor moments later.

He could only open his left eye to a sliver, and the muscles in his neck felt sore as he raised his head at the sound of the intercom. The hood of his sweatshirt fell onto his back, revealing messy, dark hair capped by a beanie.

"A reminder, students," greeted Ice Cream Man. "Research studies have shown that it was getting too easy for kids to obtain and use crystallization guns; so as a safety precaution, Mann & Webber has introduced an artificial kick in their new Lattice line of firearms. Please keep in mind that guns… _have recoil_! Thank you."

He finally recognized the area as the school's auxiliary gym with the indoor swimming pool, the one popular kid Brad Von Chillstein had almost drowned in a few weeks back. He gave an experimental tug at the bindings which kept his calves flat against the supports of the chair.

Had Ruby escaped? What if he had missed? The 15th Graders could have taken him hostage. _Nice going, genius. This is swell. This is really— I could write a song about this._

" _Hostage situation! Come and save me!_

 _Take me on vacation! Please deprave me!_

 _With that gem in your eye,_

 _Baby, you crystallize… me!"_

The other Dudes of Darkness would have teased him for those atrocious rhymes. Admittedly, he wasn't much of a lyricist, that burden falling upon his frontman Cyrus or the second guitarist, Skeeter.

"H— He's awake!" sputtered Ed McFenney. He was a pale kid with a mess of a hairstyle that was simultaneously a bowl cut, an undercut, and a mullet. He looked as greasy as he actually was, being outed weeks ago as a well-known thief around school. "Should we knock him out again?"

Giuseppe Stern eyed him with contempt, though that could have been his resting expression. "No, idiot. We use him for intel and leverage. That's how this works."

"Robin, what do you think?" Ed deferred to a short, plainly dressed girl that stood guard at the doorway leading to the outdoor tennis courts. She stood with her front facing the outside, her feet just behind the line that separated her from a danger zone.

"Hmm?" Robin Raven seemed surprised by their presence, as if they were just a couple of friends that had dropped by uninvited. "Oh, yeah. I agree."

Giuseppe crossed his arms. "You better be using those binoculars to watch for people and not birds again."

Robin shrugged. "Sure."

Goob piped up. "Didn't think you guys were the type to be taking this punishment thing seriously."

"Punishments are always serious," retorted Giuseppe. "They're necessary for a functioning and peaceful society."

"Serious enough to gem your friends and classmates?" Goob let out a scoff. "Dude, do you even know what you're being punished for?"

"It's probably that Lee Ping again." Giuseppe hissed. "I— I'm a rule-abiding student. I don't cause trouble and end up in detention like no-good pranksters and bullies."

"I bet it was _Holger_!" suggested Ed, crushing his bony hand into a fist. "Why else would we have bottles of disgusting Green Apple Splat to drink instead of classic aych-too-oh?" Green Apple Splat was currently the largest threat to proper water consumption besides Holger, but he knew his priorities.

"Is that why we're making the pool our base?" asked Robin offhandedly.

"Because it's the most logical choice, duh." Giuseppe paused, beat. "And there's a vending machine in the coach's office."

"And…" interrupted Ed. "We have all this water at our disposal!"

"I…" Goob gave pause. "I don't know where to start. Are you going to drink it, or…? Has anyone tried to short-circuit these cuffs, yet?" Maybe that was what they were keeping him for.

"Whoa." Giuseppe's eyes widened, thinning his thick eyeliner to near circles. "That's actually a good idea."

 _Crap._ Goob deadpanned. "You're not serious."

"We're just going to push you into the shallow end, okay? I'm sure you'll be fine," dismissed Giuseppe. "But before that, I've got to go stare listlessly at my own reflection while contemplating man's innate proclivity towards evil. Really gets me in the mindset."

"The mirror in the boy's locker room is broken, y'know," warned Ed. Another stray football incident earlier that week, something he could have fixed if he were still team waterboy instead of _Holger_.

"I feel like loathing my existence in its entirety today. I guess I'll just use the girl's." Giuseppe adjusted the fringe hanging over his eye as he made a line for his destination. "Keep watch over the prisoner."

Robin shrugged again. Her binoculars remained glued to her eyes. "Whatever."

"At least tell me what happened to my bass." Goob found his answer propping the door open. "Oh, that's real nice." His mom had bought it for him for his birthday two years ago, when he had been a freshman.

"I wish it was Lee Ping tied to that chair instead of you!" Ed jabbed him in the chest with a finger, possibly his way to telling him to shut up. "Or even better, _Holger_!"

"Here we go." Goob sighed.

"If Greta were here, I'd build her a grand castle with this pool as a moat and allow in only the most loyal and useful subjects — which doesn't include Holger! I'd obtain vast control of the water supply and with it, the school!" He lowered his voice and smiled in a disarming manner. "But people would also know me for my sensual nature and rapport with the ladies."

"Dude, I don't want to hear about your fanfic. Get away from me!" Goob pressed himself to the back of his chair, scooting away from the pool's edge. "I feel like this belongs on a witness statement."

"Greta would be a smart but underprivileged peasant girl who finds herself the object of desire to the king. She enjoys a life of steamy romance and excitement as my queen, away from the dehydrated barbarians outside the castle grounds! And away from Holger!"

"Oh. Oh gosh, no. Stop." Goob turned towards Robin. "Help?"

"Whatever," responded Robin.

Just as Giuseppe vanished past dimly lit tile, a tall and muscular figure emerged at the mouth of the boy's restroom. Trevor Mars staggered out, his eyes watering.

* * *

Ruby sprinted until the inside of her lungs were worn raw from exhaustion, which didn't take too long given that she hadn't attended a gym class in years. (The school considered it a liability to have her in phys. ed. with older and bigger students. Otherwise, the administration seemed more than willing to rearrange her class schedule to suit her whims, so she had never forged a doctor's note in her life.) She stopped to rest against a wall, finding herself at the foot of the boiler room door.

She startled herself when she sensed Emmett looming over her, his panting breaths quieter than she had expected. Curiously, he had escaped her notice by remaining behind her the entire time, even though he could have easily overtaken her while they were running.

"Are— Are you okay?" she asked tentatively. She didn't know why she had tipped him off back in the Forbidden Hallway. It would have been easier for her and everyone else to let him get crystallized. Minutes before, she had even considered gemming him herself had she kept that Lattice gun.

He appeared to ignore her. As if embarrassed by his own willingness to flee, he quickly uprighted himself and crossed his heavily muscled arms over his chest, making his mountainous shoulders appear even larger.

"It's okay. I'm scared, too." She couldn't gauge the meaning of his frown, but she thought he looked more uncomfortable than angry. Maybe she was projecting, similarly to how a child might talk to an inanimate object for comfort. _But I_ _ **am**_ _a child!_ It seemed so cruelly apparent standing next to him. His arm was bigger than she was!

Despite being on opposing ends of the academic spectrum, the 15th Graders were equally as secluded as the Genius Club. The contact between the two cliques was limited to student council, in which a few of her compatriots gathered every week to conference with the most eloquent (or literate, at least) of the three 15th Graders. She had never sat in on a meeting herself, so her knowledge of the group outside of the usual urban legends remained dangerously lacking.

"H— Hi. I'm Ruby." She tried to keep her arm from trembling as she raised her hand for a shake. _Make him think you trust him._ "Who're you?" She knew exactly who he was – everyone in school did.

Silence followed her question, and she thought that maybe he hadn't heard her. She cleared her throat and asked again, rephrasing herself. "What's your name?"

This time, he slowly turned his head from side to side, then glanced over his shoulders before briefly lowering his gaze to her face. His mouth barely opened. "Emmett," he said in nearly a whisper.

It might have been the first time she had ever heard him speak. She had almost believed he couldn't. "Emmett."

He continued to stare at her outstretched hand. The sleeve of her sweater was so long that her fingertips made points in the fabric. He unfolded his arms then paused, as if contemplating his options, before taking her much smaller hand into his own.

She had expected his grasp to feel like a bear trap, but he was barely touching her. She raised and lowered their joined hands in an experimental fashion; and like a hinged doll, his arm shifted to accommodate her. Ruby mustered a smile. "It's nice to meet you, I guess."

He didn't respond, didn't even smile politely like most adults did when introducing themselves to her. It was unsettling, but she figured he was safe since he hadn't hurled her across the hall, yet. Maybe he really was like Biffy Goldstein. Or maybe the run had tired him out.

"You're alone, aren't you? I got separated from my friends, too." The other 15th Graders hadn't returned, so she assumed the worst. "B— But we can help each other. I know a way out. You'll help me, right? Please?" Her pupils appeared to tremble as she peered up at his face. She was even able to produce a few tears on her lower eyelid, partially because she was legitimately terrified.

Emmett seemed surprised to see her cry, even though she was sure he had caused countless others to shed tears (and blood). His head whipped from side to side, as if he were looking for someone else. He met her with a resigned expression, his mouth slightly parted. "Okay." He sounded unsure of himself.

"You will?!" What did gratitude sound like again? Every adult that did her even the smallest of favors always wanted to feel like they were somehow making a significant impact on her life. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was so scared all by myself!" She faked a tiny sob, wiping her face with her sleeve. "But you're not so bad after all!"

The added compliment caused him to jerk his hand away, and he even stumbled back at her intensity. Still, he waited diligently at her side, and she knew she had his compliance for the moment. _Gotcha_.

He could help her get to the library as per her original objective. Any hostile students she encountered wouldn't be a problem with him following closely behind. Though, Nadine wouldn't appreciate her leading a 15th Grader into their territory, and she was sure Emmett would appreciate it even less (most likely with his fists). Their plan didn't account for an extraneous variable like this. "I have an idea, but I need your help."

She had adapted to expect his silence by now. He was looking down at her, so she assumed he was listening, at least.

"We need something that burns for a long, long time." Her specialty was quantum physics, not chemistry like her mom. Fortunately, his was trouble. "Do you know where we could find anything like that?"

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A thanks to my reviewer M, whom I remember being there for the original version of this story that was a lot sillier and friendship-based. This fic will still have a heavy emphasis on character relationships but now with plot!

I've been tossing around ideas regarding this fic, and I realized that I'm invested in the story. The series may have ended a year ago, but I hope to continue this story to the end so that other Detentionaire fans may enjoy it!


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